John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

1. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973

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John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was a major
scholar of the English language, specialising in
Old and Middle English. Twice Professor of
Anglo-Saxon (Old English) at the University of
Oxford, he also wrote a number of stories,
including most famously The Hobbit (1937)
and The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955), which
are set in a pre-historic era in an invented
version of our world which he called by the
Middle English name of Middle-earth.

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On January 3, 1892, John Ronald Reuel
Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South
Africa. Tolkien settled near Birmingham,
England.
He later studied English language and
literature at Oxford where he received a B.A.
in 1915 and M.A. in 1919.

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Tolkien married his long time love,
Edith Bratt in 1916. He served in the
army briefly during World War I as a
second lieutenant.
After the War, Tolkien’s first civilian
job was at The New English
Dictionary better known as Oxford
English Dictionary today where he
worked on the history of words of
Germanic origin.

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Inspired by mythologies and legends,
Tolkien spent a lot of time writing ingenious
fantasy stories. He invented his own languages
to be spoken by the elfish characters in his
tales.

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The Hobbit (1937), which Tolkien originally
wrote for his children, narrates the story of a
Hobbit, a small man like creature who set out
on a quest for treasure. Gaining immense
popularity, the book was published again with
pictures drawn by Tolkien.

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The publisher convinced Tolkien to write a sequel
which came 17 years later in the form of The Lord of
The Rings (1954-1955). Although Tolkien intended
to target it towards children as a sequel to The
Hobbit, instead it turned out to be more serious
and attracted a grown up readership.

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Some more of Tolkien’s further noted works
include Farmer Giles of Ham (1949), The
Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other
Verses from the Red Book (1962), Tree and
Leaf (1964), Smith of Wootton Major (1967).
Some of Tolkien’s incomplete work finished by
his son Christopher after his death includes
The Silmarillion, the “prequel” to The Lord of
the Rings, Unfinished Tales of Nmenor and
Middle-earth (1980) and Children of Hrin.